Why? The USA missed its chance after World War II, when it had the capital and its rail corridors could have gotten the width they needed for freight and passenger trains on their own tracks. If the US tried to make room for high speed rail on the west and east coasts today, it would cost hundreds of billions. Of course, the US is still spending $2 Billion a week in Afghanistan. So I guess we can't afford it.

In France, Germany Japan and China, where four of the world class train systems are found, the high speed passenger services were built from scratch, not piggybacked on an old, existing, mostly freight rail system. A world war helped, and that included a lot of bombing by the US and UK. But I don't think that's any excuse. The USA remained a wealthy nation through the space age. Just look at what happened to Penn Station. The French National Rail Corporation would die laughing if it ever got a good look at Penn Station and Amtrak. After all, France is a first world country, while the United States barely qualifies as a banana republic. And I wrote these words before news came out that the state of New York is considering yet another private company to manage the crumbling Penn Station.

This ties into the bigger, more obvious issue that mass transit in the US is generally terrible. The underlying reason is the same: the best chance for planning and funding was in the last century (either before the 1920 crash, or just after WWII). In my father's day, New York City took care of it's essential infrastructure. The automobile had not yet become the dominant means of transportation, and Robert Moses had not yet rearranged the city to accommodate millions of cars. Now, after decades of neglect, the bill is coming due. I hope the city gets the help it needs, because it's approaching a dangerous tipping point.

And even when the state of New York maintains its rails, the waste and corruption is is easy to identify.

Even if Trump and the Republicans actually gave a rat's ass about the state of America's cities or public transportation, the Administration's crippling incompetence and absurd scandals make serious action nearly impossible. This is what middle America voted for, and all of us, beginning with the people of New York, are going to pay for it.

When John Roebling designed a mile-long suspension bridge to connect Manhattan to Brooklyn, there was no question what it was going to be named. A bridge should be named after the town or neighborhood it connects to - Brooklyn! But over 100 years later, when Boston had the chance to build an iconic bridge between itself and Charlestown, and simply call it the Charlestown Bridge, it walked into a political battle over whether to name it after a civil rights attorney or a Revolutionary War battlefield. And what did Boston do? They named it after both. Clarity and courage!

What happens when a state names infrastructure after the wrong person? Well, New York holds that title as well. John F. Kennedy Airport is named after a president from Massachusetts. He had sex with Marilyn Monroe here. But JFK wasn't from here. His brother was a US Senator for New York for just two years (and he got a bridge renamed for him in 2008).

Renaming Idlewild International Airport was a costly, hasty error, in my opinion. New York City gave its biggest airport the wrong name just so they could be first to rename infrastructure after JFK (just six weeks after his assassination). If any city should have renamed their airport to JFK it should have been Boston. Can you imagine an alternate universe in which the big New York airport is named after someone who actually lived or died in New York? How about Joey Ramone from Queens who sung a damn song about the very part of Queens the airport is located? Or how about David Bowie, who lived his last 22 years in New York? Or maybe even Jane Jacobs, who stood up to Robert Moses and saved SOHO? Or how about Margaret Sanger?

Surprise, surprise, New York infrastructure is deterioratingbefore our eyes! How could this possibly happen? Everyone knows the city, the state, and the nation have been pouring billions into creating the infrastructure of the future while putting millions to work and stimulating solid economic growth. Right? Or maybe not!

It would have been all too easy to commit billions to rebuild the infrastructure in Manhattan, much of which is now in its second century. But no one thought of that. And here we are.

Right now, Manhattan is riding the biggest real estate bubble in its history. The median price of a condo in the borough is well over $1 Million, with the price far higher in downtown neighborhoods, such as the Lower East Side, where this water main break and sinkhole occured. Not that it will make us little people feel better, but what we are seeing are overpriced luxury homes being built on top of decaying infrasturure. And many of these developments are in what are now flood zones going forward as sea levels rise and more Atlantic hurricanes are expected to turn left and make landfall in the region.

My biggest gripe with New York, beyond the fact that it is an imperialst, even pro-war city with a dangerous wealth gap, is that its infrastucture is terrible. We have outstanding drinking water. But that won't last. We are told that the subways are reliable. Yes, in spite of the fact that the system is barely holding together. When I look at Tokyo, Hong Kong, and even London (the other "Capitals of the World" right?), I see better infrastucture. We New Yorkers won't realize the lost opportunities we had to rebuild until it is too late.

The 2009 Federal stimulus package might have been our last chance to rebuild. We shall see if I'm correct.

Can we talk about the UK for a few seconds? That country has a Tory government, which practices the voodoo brand of economics called austerity, horrible storms, likely associated with climate change, which conservatives insist is a liberal hoax, and now a wave of crap! There'll always be a Britain!